Saturday, December 13, 2008

Biden's wife, Jill, made the same assurance to her husband if he and Obama, his running mate, won the election.

Jill Biden had taped pictures of different dogs on the back of the seat in front of Biden on his campaign plane to inspire the candidate as he crisscrossed the country in the final sprint to election day, according to published reports during the campaign.

Friday, December 12, 2008

We also know that the incipiency of bankruptcy tends to focus the mind and produce real offers. Why don't we tell the current Big Three that $25 billion in capital is available—but only to two of them? The surviving two will be those that submit the best, and final, binding bids, supported by all the necessary constituencies: boards, managers, suppliers, vendors, creditors, and the UAW.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

McInturff, McCain's pollster, told a story.: "The point was, we do the surge, John's been for it from like, 2004,45 and 6, we are the leading critic of the Bush administration, and then we get to January of '07, and then, guess what, the Bush administration ...adopts the surge, we go on TV in January on Meet the Press, and I said 'we have to say, over and over and over again, here's where I've been for years, and the president's behind me... and John was very, very tempered in a way that really affected our numbers with the base."

[...]

"What really happened," McInturff said, "was that John McCain really became President Bush's spokesperson on Iraq."

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

I have to be honest, the whole thing still hasn't quite sunk in for me. But in the height of yesterday's craziness, the campaign asked us to make 5,000 emergency calls to New Hampshire in one hour before the polls closed.

In that melee, I saw a guy waiting around who had no cellphone. Without thinking, I handed him my iPhone and told him to get calling.

I completely lost track of him over the next hour and a half, which started to stress me out.

I eventually did find him and he returned my phone intact. (And yes, I did check to see how many calls he made. 64 calls in 2 hours. Man, the Obama campaign is good.)

Then, about two hours later, after McCain conceded and Obama was about to give his speech, I got a call from a strange number--and I picked up.

The woman's voice on the other end of the line said: "Hello, California?"

"Yes?"

"This is Iowa. We want to thank you for everything you guys did for us!"

Monday, November 03, 2008

The PessimistYou've seen this story before. Democrats, poised for victory in the White House, get it stolen away at the last minute. Maybe it's because of faulty voting machines, citizens stricken from the voting rolls, dirty tricks, judicial fiat, or maybe we just get out-hustled at the last minute. Whatever the case, you wake up Wednesday morning devastated and wondering how this could come to pass.

And now this year is no different. You're looking at those critical battleground state polls and seeing tightening across the board. Those people who were undecided just a week ago now seem to be flocking to John McCain, and the Republicans are guaranteeing victory. After the last eight years, you cannot understand why.

The country's character is about to be tested, and you harbor dark thoughts about the secret feelings that live deep inside America's psyche.

You are beside yourself with anxiety--and don't know what to do.

Here is the only prescription for your ailment:

Get involved. Come to our phonebank and be inspired by the hundreds of other people who care enough to call voters across the country urging them to vote and to make the right decision.

Instead of sitting helplessly watching MSNBC, do something. Make a difference.

The OptimistAfter eight years, it is almost "Morning in America"...again. You look at the television and see tens of thousands of Democratic voters in Atlanta, Georgia willing to stand in line for eight hours to vote early for Barack Obama. You're looking at those critical national polls and seeing widening across the board. The independents and moderate Republicans are flocking to Barack Obama. After the last eight years, you understand why.

You see Democrats united as they have never been before. You see prominent Republicans endorsing Barack and Joe. You start hearing terms like "filibuster-proof majority," "landslide" and "mandate"--and you think this could happen. You're seeing polls with Barack tied or ahead in states like North Carolina and Indiana---and Georgia and North Dakota!

For you, this is not about getting 270 electoral votes--this is about getting 370. About crushing the soul of the party who has steered America on the wrong course. Years like "1932" and "1980" come to mind, where the entire political map was redrawn for decades.

You don't just want to win. You want to win big.

You want to run up the score.

And most of all, you cannot wait to celebrate the biggest transformation of American politics in your lifetime.

You are beside yourself with excitement--and don't know what to do.

Come celebrate with us. Come to our phonebank and begin the party early. Enjoy meeting fellow Obama supporters and share your stories and enthusiasm and be a part of history.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

"Don’t believe for a second this election is over. Don’t think for a minute that power concedes. We have to work like our future depends on it in this last week, because it does."

-Barack Obama, October 28th, 2008.

---

Many of you have been asking how you can help the most on Election Day.

Here is the answer.

Next Tuesday, we are going to be running one of the biggest, most powerful Get Out The Vote (GOTV) Phonebanks in the entire country. California is going to make the vast majority of GOTV calls for the entire Obama Campaign on election day.

We have a soundstage at Culver Studios that will be able to seat 200 people.

Starting at 6 AM, we are going to start calling the East Coast. Then, hour by hour, we are going to work our way across the country with states selected by the Obama campaign based on the exit polling they are receiving on Election Day in real time.

We will be calling the most important, highest leverage voters in the country -- the voters that we have to turn out in the states that we have to win. Quite simply, there is nothing you can do to make a bigger difference on Election Day.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's bid for the White House, have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election. "Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012," says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin. "The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney. He's in charge on November 5th."

Friday, October 24, 2008

Things will go on very much as they have hitherto—except that we shall have honesty and manliness instead of meanness and corruption in the Executive departments, and a decent regard for the opinions of mankind in the tone and talk of the Government on the subject of Slavery.

No on Prop 8Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

I also wouldn't be surprised about endorsements from Ross Perot and possibly Bloomberg in the next few days either.

UPDATE:Slightly more obscure to the layperson, but symbolically powerful. Legal scholar Charles Fried just announced that he's voting for Obama. Besides being Reagan's Solicitor General, Fried was (until this morning) one of John McCain's legal advisors!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

There was absolutely nothing unpredictable about last night's debate. In fact, it followed the essential pattern of every other debate in the General.

Obama came across as calm and collected.

McCain was disdainful, aggressive and petulant.

McCain started off strong, but ended up getting flustered when his attacks weren't landing. He petered out as the debate wore on.

The post-debate pundit spin was that McCain won...

...which was immediately disproven by the across the board sweep of all of the focus groups and snap polls that showed Obama wiped McCain out.

Interestingly, even the VP debate followed this basic series of events.

Obama definitely won the expectations game when it came to the debates. For whatever reason, it seemed to be a universally accepted fact that Obama was not a great debater.

However, one fact got lost in murky past of the brief Republican primary season: John McCain is a horrible at debating. All of the same traits that he evinces now were on display back then as well: his choppy style, his peevishly aggressive demeanor and his lack of familiarity or understanding of the economy.

Lucky for John McCain, he seemed to go up against the only person who was worse at debating than he was: Mitt Romney. That, coupled with the McCain-Mike Huckabee double teaming pretty much guaranteed that Romney was considered the loser of most of the Republican debates. But let's be honest, the Republican crop of candidates this year was pretty weak stuff.

Several writers have been speculating that McCain may try to pull some sort of stunt tonight, including, but not limited to announcing a pledge to only serve one term. The rationale behind this is: John McCain will put country first ahead of his own political ambitions.

I want McCain to lose, but let me offer some free advice:

That may have been an intriguing tactic six months ago. And probably a much better one at the RNC in September. But now, such a move would backfire worse than suspending his campaign again.

Every time people looked at McCain they would think one thing: Sarah Palin 2012.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Biden was campaigning in Ohio, but had West Virginia on his mind late this afternoon, making a bold promise to win a state that has gone Republican in the past two elections.

“Which way is West-By-God-Virginia?” Biden asked the crowd Ohio University Eastern Campus, about 10 miles west of that state's border with Ohio. “I want to send a message to West Virginia -- we’re going to win in West Virginia! … We’re going to shock the living devil out of y’all!”

Less than four hours before Steve Jobs introduces new laptops today, Microsoft is already circulating whiny-baby, anti-Apple Talking Points??

They offer charts comparing the feature lists of similarly priced Windows and Mac notebooks and make numerous accusations of an "Apple Tax." The email is interesting: nothing they say is incorrect, but none of it is new. Most importantly, all of it misses the point completely.

Seriously. Talking points??

Hmm, maybe after this campaign is over, Steve Schmidt can get a job after all...

“When Barack Obama is president we’re not gonna wait for our luck to change,” he said. “We’re gonna change our luck. We’re gonna change this country. In the neighborhood I come from, you make your own luck.”

Linnea and I respect all that Senator McCain has done for our country. However, we feel strongly that it is Barack Obama who offers the real leadership our nation needs to tap its potential as a land of opportunity -- even as we face difficult times at home and abroad. Senator Obama is a patriotic American, a committed Christian, a good family man, and a man who shares the bedrock values that most North Carolinians have in common: fairness, hard work, respect for others, and personal responsibility.

*** Money to burn? This past weekend, your First Read team had the luxury of watching some TV in the DC area (Northern Virginia). While enjoying college football games on Saturday, the Sunday morning news shows, NFL games, and 60 Minutes, we probably viewed 30-40 Obama TV ads. And get this -- we didn’t see a single McCain advertisement

Unless Chuck Todd is a die hard Notre Dame fan and really wanted to see them lose to #22 North Carolina, outside of possibly watching "Meet The Press," apparently none of the shows he watches over the weekend are on NBC...

Sunday, October 12, 2008

This was inevitable. McCain is the last Republican Presidential candidate of the 20th Century. Palin wants to think that she's the first of the 21st. With the race clearly slipping from their grasp, Palin is now throwing John McCain under the bus.

Sarah Palin is now out for herself. The next three and a half weeks should be fascinating.

With his electoral prospects fading by the day, Senator John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign.

[...]

“Sarah Palin is no fool. She sees the same thing and wants to salvage what she can. She is positioning herself for the future. Her best days could be in front of her. She wants to look as though she was the fighter, the person with the spunk who was out there taking it to the Democrats.”

The man in charge of John McCain's day-to-day presidential campaign is tired of reporters saying he's Rove's "protégé"—the implication being that he is willing to do anything to win.

The article goes on to detail how "pained" Schmidt is this campaign has turned out this way--neglecting, of course, of the single-minded way that the McCain campaign, under Schmidt's direction, has injected toxic negativity at every turn.

The article also makes curious mention of one of Schmidt's prior jobs:

After Bush won in '04, Schmidt took a job at the White House working for Dick Cheney. The vice president had the worst persona in politics—his popularity was in the low 20s—and Schmidt was given the unenviable task of giving the dour, secretive vice president a personality makeover.

Hmm, a campaign consultant whose job was to make over the image of a violently unpopular Republican political figure. (A job he failed to do, by the way.)

Say... you don't suppose that Schmidt, with his client John McCain highly favored to lose--and lose big--isn't possibly trying to pull the same PR shenanigans with the press for himself, do you?

Exit Turd Blossom 2.0?

Enter the kinder, gentler Schmidt whose feelings get hurt when someone even mentions Rove in his presence?

And, bingo:

Privately, Schmidt's friends say he has expressed worry about how he will be viewed after the campaign. "He does not desire to go through life with the tag of Karl Rove disciple attached to him," says one friend who asked not to be named talking about private conversations. "He has a life to go back to that has nothing to do with politics … But he also wants to win."

Aww, poor baby.

Maybe next time, Schmidty will realize that actions have consequences.

The spirts of the dead Julius Caesar are present -- "oh, most bloody sight!" with John McCain, maverick and prisoner of the war of French Indo-China and Sarah Palin, northern barracuda, who love to sneer on account of Barack Obama's speeches, pillorying and demogoging the African American Senator from the Land of Lincoln at Republican rallies.

The rabid less-than-dogs of candidates pretend they are "no orator as Brutus is", as they "stir men's blood" and disturb the minds of the people to a "sudden flood of mutiny" as William Shakespeare wrote.

When the screaming Americans at the Republican rallies hear the name "Barack Hussein Obama", they exclaim "Death!," "Lover of terorists!," "Socialist!," "Bomb Obama!," "Obama is an Arab!," "Cut off his head!" the time has come as Stephen Colbert says, to stop "the Smear Talk Express." Obama is demonized just as if he was a Muslim Manchurian candidate -- a citizen "stag's neck(?)" exhorts to Palin's Florida rally that Obama is the Devil.

Scarcely any person heard the name "Palin" prior to a few moons (ago). Emerging from her tanning bed to the forests in Eskimo-land, now she is asking everyone who is the most traitorous, most ominous, most scurrilous, most dangerous lover of 60's terrorists and criminals of Chicago? You betcha!

"From blind ambition comes Obama," Palin and McCain say a new rumor. "For an advantage, Obama worked with the lover of terrorists, William Ayres. With a pruner(?), he lies." McCain's big leader Francis Keating said Obama was "a plebe" and, as a youth he must have sniffed a little cocaine.

While the First Dude, the husband of Palin, attempted to be blamed for "Centurion-gate", the judges of the land of Santa's Elves chastened the lady-Governor Palin concerning the abuse of authority for the purpose of familial revenge.

Notwithstanding Sarah and John bury Obama not praise him. The Maverices along with the their chief aide, the frost-lady, henchwoman Cindy McCain, beer-baroness (who blamed Obama for putting her own son in maximum danger in Babylon) brazenly distract the minds of the people from their decimated 401ks, the shrinking "General Motors" and the Great Depression 2.0. This is all from "W", George Bush the second, the colossal goofball certainly is leading through disaster to the gym.

The lady-Governor (lying next to Russia) Palin, looking to be a candidate in 2012, after much learning with Kissinger and much parody from Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey, will insult Obama arrogantly, in the manner of shooting wolves from the air, North of Thrace.

In Wilmington, Ohio, McCain's mean girl defended herself being a warrior-politician-lady, "O Jupiter, some people say that this is negative. No. It is not negative, but the highest truth." Talk about lipstick on a pig! Just as Lee Atwater (said) about George Bush the First's assault to Dukakis: "it's not a negative, but a comparison."

How did I feel about Sen. McCain stating “You probably never heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac before this.”

Well Senator, I actually did. I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person. I have a bachelor degree in Political Science from Tennessee State, so I try to keep myself up to date with current affairs. I have a Master degree in Legal Studies from Southern Illinois University, a few years in law school, and I am currently pursuing a Master in Public Administration from the University of Memphis. In defense of the Senator from Arizona I would say he is an older guy, and may have made an underestimation of my age. Honest mistake. However, it could be because I am a young African-American male. Whatever the case may be it was somewhat condescending regardless of my age to make an assumption regarding whether I was knowledgeable about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

If the election were held today, I think Obama would win 375 electoral votes:

All of the Kerry States (252) plus:

Iowa (7) & New Mexico (5)--all but locked up.

Virginia (13)--which will take him over 270.

After that, I think it would be a clean sweep of the following swing states, from biggest margin to smallest:

Colorado (9), Nevada (5), Florida (27) & Ohio (20).

The following three are legitimate polling toss-ups, but I have to think that the superiority of the Obama ground game will be determinative here:

North Carolina (15), Missouri (11), Indiana (11).

This is probably Obama's ceiling--and it is legitimately a landslide. To get beyond this, there will truly have to be an unprecedented turn-out for new voters, young voters, and African Americans. Bad news for your 401k, the Dow would probably have to drop another 1,000 points or so, too--Obama would have to increase his national polling average by another 4-5 points or so.

If you want to start to really get greedy, the next state that Obama could get would probably be Georgia (15). Early polling in Georgia has shown that 9% of the state has voted, and that they favor Obama 64-35. Now there is no way that that is going to last, but it does indicate that the Obama campaign is outhustling the McCain campaign in getting their voters to the polls early. A good sign.

Beyond that, the next most likely state to fall is strangely West Virginia (5)--a state that gave Obama less than 30% of the vote in the primaries. One less than reputable poll gives Obama an 8 point advantage here.

After that, the only states I think Obama could win would be Montana (3) and North Dakota (3). Pre-Sarah Palin, I think Obama could have won both (along with Alaska), but that seems very remote at this point.

But, if Obama supporters stay focused and hungry for the next four weeks, and Republicans get increasingly depressed about the election and stay home, we could be in for some very, very, pretty numbers.

About 33 percent of independents said the "Tina Fey effect" is hurting the McCain-Palin ticket, compared with 9 percent who said it was helpful, a Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports survey says. The figures were nearly identical among independents in the survey.

Do they sway voters? Probably not. But they definitely sway media narratives.

In light of the endorsement from Chuck Hagel's wife today, the question has been raised about Chuck Hagel's rumored endorsement (and Colin Powell's). Clearly Nebraska's 2nd Congressional district electoral vote is in play--witness Sarah Palin playing defense (and then lying about it) on Sunday.

But the one constant in the Obama camp is that they have been masters of timing their endorsements perfectly: Ted Kennedy, Bill Richardson, John Edwards.

Chuck Hagel endorsing Obama will be a big deal--media-wise. My guess is that the Obama camp is saving that card for if and when they need it. (It would be pretty effective for Colin Powell and Chuck Hagel to endorse Obama after a Bin Laden videotape emerged, for instance.)

Monday, October 06, 2008

I'm just saying--if John McCain had opposed the bailout bill last week, it had still passed, and the Dow still ended up under 10,000 today, wouldn't he have a much better set of talking points today than warmed over William Ayres smears?

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Given their new penchant for casting cameos as debate moderators (Chris Parnell as Jim Lehrer, Queen Latifah as Gwen Ifill), would it be too much to hope for SNL bringing back Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw?

Rudolph W. Giuliani said yesterday that the comedian Jackie Mason would no longer have a role in his mayoral campaign, after a newspaper quoted Mr. Mason as making racially charged remarks about blacks and Jews.

[...]

''There is a sick Jewish problem of voting for a black man no matter how unfit he is for the job,'' Mr. Mason said. ''All you have to do is to be black and don't curse the Jews directly and the Jew will vote for a black in a second. Jews are sick with complexes.''

No one has squandered their credibility boost from this year's primaries more quickly or sharply than Peggy Noonan.

After getting caught speaking her mind when she thought no one was looking, on the same day she espoused the opposite position in her Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan has been in full damage control mode, trying to get back in favor with her conservative puppet-masters.

Today's column is a pretty pathetic continuation of this rehabilitation:

She killed. She had him at "Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?" She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man. She was not petrified but peppy.

Three months ago, I thought Peggy Noonan could have earned a spot in the American Political Pantheon by crossing party lines and crafting Barack Obama's version of "Morning in America."

Now she is continues to reveal herself to be nothing more than another partisan hack. One who hypocritically attacks Democrats for being elitists through a op-ed column humbly titled "Declarations."

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

"I've got a pretty long track record covering politics and news," [Ifill] said. "so I'm not particularly worried that one-day blog chatter is going to destroy my reputation. The proof is in the pudding. They can watch the debate tomorrow night and make their own decisions about whether or not I've done my job."

Hopefully, she has the integrity to live up to this.

Failing that, hopefully she looks at the polls and realizes there's no profit in kowtowing to right-wing bullies.

Staggering numbers to be sure. The McCain campaign panicked about these numbers and attempted to laugh them off.

"These polls are laughable. We hope Obama thinks they’re true. The national tracking is clear: Some polls have us down 2 percent, some 4, some as high as 6. How could you have national numbers like that, but have those kinds of numbers in three of the largest, most competitive states in the country?"

These are staggering, staggering numbers. Assuming Obama wins all of John Kerry's states (and really at this point, the only question mark is New Hampshire's 4 Electoral Votes) and Iowa and New Mexico, which everyone assumes he wins, as well as Colorado where he is leading, we're talking about 349 Electoral Votes...

...and we're not even factoring Indiana and North Carolina where the polls are deadlocked, if not showing a slight Obama lead.

The most devastating factor of all is, as far as I can tell, these polls are now talking about likely voters--not registered voters. Likely Voters have usually voted in at least the two last elections, which means that they are disproportionately oversampling older voters, and undersampling younger voters and new registrants.

And I'll give you two guesses on who those groups favor.

What this means is: there is a reasonable assumption that as amazing as these poll numbers are today, they could very well be understating Obama's actual support in these states.

Just a thought: If things are going badly for Palin tomorrow night, do you think she might change tactics (or is it strategies?) and actually attack Ifill herself for being biased? This seems to be Palin's favorite move in her Couric interview.

I would argue it's a losing strategy, but it certainly would create the dominant story coming out of the debate--and it would be a story that wasn't about Palin's complete lack of knowledge about, well, anything.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Hopefully, we will never hear from her again after November 5th. Obviously the Republicans will trot her out to fundraise, but she is such a knucklehead even they can't possibly try and position her again for higher office.

In short, she will become the Geraldine Ferraro of the Republican Party.

Which, I guess, means that someday she will piss off Republican voters by NOT being racist.

In an interview here after Sunday’s broadcast, Mr. Brokaw said that over the summer he had “advocated” within the executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there were presidential debates.

[...]

Mr. Brokaw said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Icy snow falls from high in Mars's atmosphere and may even reach the planet's surface, scientists working with NASA's Phoenix lander reported yesterday.

[...]

"Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars," said Jim Whiteway of York University in Toronto, lead scientist for the Canadian-supplied Meteorological Station on Phoenix. "We'll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground."

How any of this could possibly be construed as a positive for either McCain or the Republican Party is beyond me (and I say this as a life-long Republican)? In fact, it would seem much more likely to me that the House Republicans just handed the election to Obama on a silver platter. Blaming the vote on Pelosi’s antagonistic remarks seems especially dumb, and I expect to see Barney Frank-type comments all over the MSM tonight and throughout the week

McCain suspends his campaign.Goes to Washington to wrangle the House Republicans. Restarts his campaign. Gets blown out at the debate. Goes back to Washington to wrangle House Republicans.Claims credit for putting the bill back together...And then fails to deliver House Republicans.

Moderator Gwen Ifill is the key. I think she will work, generally, to the Democrats and Biden's favor, for the following reasons:

She is a damn good journalist.

She works for PBS and is, I imagine, far less ratings obsessed than an anchor from a broadcast network. Result: less focus on silly tabloid stories and gossip items. A conversation about pigs, lipstick, Track and babies instead of the Fed Bailout, Iraq, Afghanistan and things like, you know, actual policy.

She is a contender for the "Meet The Press" job. With David Gregory (mercifully) fading, and no other option clearly manifesting itself (scratch Olbermann and Matthews), one has to think that Ifill's chances are as good as they have ever been. Consider this to be her ultimate audition. Conduct a debate worthy of NBC's Sunday and she makes the strongest case she can. Conduct a debate worthy of Access Hollywood--not so much.

It should be noted that #3 does contradict #2 slightly--obviously the higher ups are going to be looking at how big of a draw Ifil's is. My guess is not that big--but Sarah Palin sure will be.

With the sexism card in the air, Sarah Palin in a defensive post-Couric crouch and an expectation that Biden will somehow make an ass of himself towards Palin, the fact that Ifill is not a white man will undercut the "old-boy network Biden and the debate moderator ganged up on poor Sarah" narrative that could easily have emerged from the debate. Biden can still get himself in trouble--but no one likes watching two against one, so he may have dodged a bullet here.

This debate will be the most watched, and was on McCain's presumed turf: foreign policy. Consequently, it was his best chance for a big win. I also think, after three weeks of devastating media coverage, there was an opportunity for a narrative shift, which does not seemed to have happened.

On the non-substantive issues, I think McCain lost as well. His churlish, angry behavior will be mercilessly mocked on Saturday Night Live tomorrow, and the CW will be set from this debate. As some have noted, McCain's sneer = Gore's sighs. Obama seemed calm, cool and collected.

The snap polls from the networks seem to indicate a universal opinion that Obama won this.

Personally, I think Obama won this narrowly. But he won it on the road, and now the series shifts back to Barack Field.

For the record, this debate series most closely resembles the old 5-game MLB playoffs. The worse team got the first two games at home, but the better team would get game 3, and then 4 and 5 if necessary.

McCain lost his home field early, and now cannot regain the advantage. He could always win on the road, but that is going to be much harder for him.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday that Sen. John McCain made a “huge mistake” by even discussing canceling the presidential debate with Sen. Barack Obama.

[...]

Huckabee said he still backs McCain’s candidacy, but said the Arizona senator should not have put his campaign on hold to deal with the financial crisis on Wall Street. He said a president must be prepared to “deal with the unexpected.”

At this point, with no deal to be struck before the markets open tomorrow morning--and presumably crater, isn't it completely in the Democrats best interests to stonewall the Republicans and force John McCain to either show up in Mississippi, eat crow and lose face, or cede 90 minutes of free media to Barack Obama in front of 40 million people?

One the proposals -- favored by House Republicans -- would relax regulation and temporarily get rid of certain taxes in order to lure private industry into the market for these distressed assets.

Wait a second. John Sidney McCain III, who has been pilloried over the past two weeks for being an architect (or at least an enabler) of the massive deregulation that has gotten us into this mess, and seen his popularity and poll numbers plummet as a result, goes to Washington D.C. "to save the bailout plan" and proposes more deregulation?

Has anyone noticed how ironic it is that after basing his entire candidacy on the success of the surge to break the back of the insurgents in Iraq, John McCain is now running his entire campaign essentially as a guerilla insurgency? Shock tactics and stunts to scare the populace.

John McCain faced another crisis yesterday--a political one, not the financial emergency he used as an excuse for his rash actions--and once again he overreacted. This is becoming a pattern (as is his "greatest crisis since..." formulation: yesterday, since World War II; previously--on Georgia--since the end of the cold war), and it is not very reassuring behavior in a potential President.

[...]

And that raises an interesting question: Why was McCain so quick to pull out of the debate? After all, with the momentum slightly in Obama's direction, he needed a game-changer--and foreign policy is, allegedly, his area of expertise. His peremptory actions yesterday was not the behavior of a confident man. It was the behavior of a man uncertain, despite all the macho bluster, about his chances in the most important theater of battle in any presidential campaign, one where gimmicks, diversions and untruths can be directly countered by his opponent. McCain may clean Obama's clock in the coming debates--but it seems entirely possible that the old fighter jock may be frightened that he's about to ditch another plane.

When I was a kid, once every now and then, they had Bugs Bunny specials scheduled for prime time ... I looked forward to these for weeks. But invariably, invariably! -- or so it seemed when I was six years old -- they'd be preempted by Ronald Reagan giving a speech. I was sure what Mr. Reagan was saying was very important ... but I absolutely hated him as a result.

Oddly, I had exactly the same experience, though I remember specifically being incensed that Bugs Bunny was preempted the night that Reagan was shot.

What's changed today in the financial crisis other than John McCain's poll numbers tanking? Isn't this the campaign equivalent of faking an injury when you're down late in the 4th quarter? Note too that McCain was in the midst of debate prep when he made this decision.

This makes McCain more like Bush than ever before.

Blair Bush.

Rats. I just remembered that it was actually Joe Nash who used to fake injuries.

I hate to say it, but I am on the verge of dropping Firefox completely and moving to Safari. Pages frequently don't open for me, or take forever to render, but when I open them on Safari they open immediately.

Hillary just held a private conference call with Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and dozens of donors to her campaign and to Ohio Dems, urging them to plow funds into the coffers of the Ohio state party so it can help execute the ground game on Barack Obama's behalf, a Hillary aide confirms to me.

[...]

Hillary also promised extensive future visits to the state on Obama's behalf. "I will be back campaigning up and down the state to make the case that the failed leadership of the last eight years should not be rewarded with another four," she told the donors.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent. Obama is a little young, but also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that's OK. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip.

[...]

The Iraq war: Many Americans will cast their vote on this one issue alone. Past performance is the best indicator of future conduct. Obama opposed the war, McCain supported it full-bore. Obama has a plan for moving the troops out; McCain seeks "victory," whatever that actually means. The net effect will be more time and money wasted in a country that did not participate in 9/11.

[...]

On numerous other issues, from media consolidation to health care, Obama has the stronger take. He makes up for a thin résumé with integrity, judgment and fresh ideas. Obama can get America moving forward again.

The SuperSystem -- with no knowledge of anything about football other than last year's records and a painstaking mathematical study of the NFL since 1988 -- makes the following predictions for Week 2:

ATLANTA over Kansas CityBUFFALO over OaklandCHICAGO over Tampa BayTENNESSEE over HoustonMINNESOTA over CarolinaNEW ENGLAND over MiamiNY GIANTS over CincinnatiWASHINGTON over ArizonaSAN FRANCISCO over DetroitSEATTLE over St. LouisDENVER over New OrleansPHILADELPHIA over PittsburghINDIANAPOLIS over JacksonvilleBALTIMORE over ClevelandGREEN BAY over DallasSAN DIEGO over NY Jets

This week's suicide pick: New EnglandBiggest remaining mismatch: St. Louis at New England, week 8

The SuperSystem -- with no knowledge of anything about football other than last year's records and a painstaking mathematical study of the NFL since 1988 -- made the following predictions for Week 2:

CINCINNATI over TennesseeGREEN BAY over DetroitKANSAS CITY over OaklandNY GIANTS over St. LouisMINNESOTA over IndianapolisWASHINGTON over New OrleansCAROLINA over ChicagoSEATTLE over San FranciscoJACKSONVILLE over BuffaloTAMPA BAY over AtlantaNEW ENGLAND over NY JetsARIZONA over MiamiDENVER over San DiegoPITTSBURGH over ClevelandDALLAS over PhiladelphiaOAKLAND over Denver

These days, he sounds less like his old self than Bob Dole, another senator who ran for president in 1996, sounded in the closing days of his campaign — speaking louder or repeating statements that he thinks might be overlooked.